jean
definitely a long while in the making...turns out i can tolerate these British classics much better if i just listen to them. i already knew 80% of the story, having seen the recent film adaptation approx. 100 times, but i have to say i liked it a lot better than Persuasion in book form. don't think i'll be willingly touching Austen for a while, though.
a worse read when compared with Eat & Run, i think. reading these ultrarunners' books...i find my mind is completely boggled. not at the distance, necessarily, but because they really end up putting their health on the line, but they seem so health-obsessed, too. maybe these just aren't for me. still going to read Born to Run though.
jurek really tends to paint a bleak picture with practically every race he describes, and then turns around at the last minute and describes how he won handily seemingly out of nowhere. this gets both old and confusing; he spends way too much time describing pure struggle for me to really comprehend how he won or made it through to the end in many instances. wish he would get into that more in his writing.
this particular journey was somewhat mindnumbing and frustrating to read. jenny's sections help break it up, and i probably wouldn't have even finished this if it were just scott's perspective. overall it's a very interesting juxtaposition with how this FKT is shown in the Game Changers film. the worst part for me was realizing that jurek basically admits he fucks around and wastes a ton of time early on, then at the end he's dangerously sleep-deprived, delirious, and metabolizing his own muscle (cardiac risk) because of how he mismanaged the trip...because of his ego. didn't feel a bit of sympathy at that point. the last sections, especially, sounded very dangerous, and i was definitely annoyed with how they seemed to approach that.
the fkt seems like it was a herculean, community effort, and i admire scott's grit, but reading about it definitely took the luster off the record for me. also solidified how much of sports can be about resources. i doubt some no name with similar capabilities to jurek would get away with messing about like he did, because they wouldn't get nearly as much help. he called in like eight lifelines to push and pull and drag him along.
Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself
positives: the journey he made is obviously impressive and exceptional. i respect anyone that can do what he did, regardless of how they got it done.
interesting: it's extremely clear through the whole book that he has a high amount of economic privilege. it's especially effusive as his life story progresses and he starts working out. there's no question, save for one short episode, about doing anything related to his training. this isn't bad, it's just a part of his struggle that is sort of alienating. sure, hire a coach, buy carbon fiber bikes, kit, buy exclusively organic food and obsess over your Vitamix, choose to work wherever you want, etc. he stopped being #relatable when he started getting in shape, basically.
negative: Roll perpetuates vegan diet myths and puts emphasis on the wrong things in my opinion. for one, the section on soy is simply incorrect. it's funny reading him have tantrums about when he couldn't eat perfectly due to...being poorly prepared, and could only eat, say, vegan plebian thai takeout. he really seems to be on that rich Hollywood vegan stereotype train.
probably the biggest negative relating to the content of the book, however, is the fact that it feels like an ad in a lot of ways. instead of just talking about his plant based diet, Roll must mention his “special” (it's not) PlantPower (there might as well be an ® or ™️ after it) diet and his Vitamix every single page. certainly felt like it.
overall the book was okay, i guess. he seemed to really focus heavily on his personal life for a long time, then he went really hard on the series of triathlons he did, and then it just ended. i felt it cut off early and without enough commentary or insight, but it was fine. i felt his transition to fitness was lacking in detail as well, and that made it somewhat hard to grasp at times. wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone that isn't a big fan of his. i like his podcast and all, but that's much more about the guests than this guy.
read a Scott Jurek book instead imo.
the style is intermittently interesting or pretty, to me, but on the whole feels forcefully simplified and gets repetitive. Jurek's an amazing runner, obviously, and it's nice to pick up some advice on what vegan runners eat when i'm trying to be a runner again, and i'm vegan too. he does frequently come off as self-aggrandizing and haughty about his diet and accomplishments compared to his peers. i won't judge his personal life, but there are some odd aspects about the way he decided to talk about particular parts of it (his ex-wife and Dusty).
it's one of those books where once you've read 10% of it you've encountered all the author will do, really, and the rest is just repeating whatever their formula is. if you're interested enough and can get through i quickly enough, it's worth a beach/bed read.
I finally read this (my sister had purchased it a while ago) mostly because of the unrest after the murder of George Floyd. I have to say, I was kind of shocked by how unrelenting it was; I think it's a useful and valuable book for sure. Kind of interesting how whether or not books like this(white people talking to white people about racism) existed before DiAngelo released White Fragility, none seems to have ever been nearly as popular or impactful.
Just a couple things I didn't like. Literally two.
- I felt she spent a lot of time repeating herself(probably necessary) and not enough time explaining certain terms and concepts she used. While reading, I tried to read it as if I were a skeptical/defensive white person. Early on in the book, she starts talking about how schools/America are still “segregated,” but doesn't quite explain much of how or why. Seems like something easy to balk at if one is looking for any reason to discredit the book and its ideas: Title 9 exists, de jure segregation à la Jim Crow no longer exists. At the same time, I think she mentioned that she wouldn't be explaining how America has been/is racist, and it's certainly a tall order to do so in one book (whose length would certainly turn people off). I guess I just wish there were some sections explaining certain things more fully, instead of repeated same-y anecdotes about her experiences in various workshops.
- The chapter on “White Woman Tears:” I definitely agree with the issue of white women weaponizing their emotions against people of color. What I don't agree with is the idea that it's somehow offensive when white women cry or are visibly upset when they are confronted with racism's effects on people of color. It's the first section of that chapter, I believe, and I just couldn't see the real justification for the embargo on this behavior. Personally I think that the black woman that approached DiAngelo was mostly in the wrong to say that “she didn't want to see any white woman's tears today.” Sure–if I were watching a white woman cry about unarmed black people getting shot, I would definitely be wondering if she were a decent “ally” herself and not just...sad about seeing people die...but I don't think that this emotional barrier should be maintained or erected. I can't see what purpose it serves. It's okay to not want performative/narcissistic tears to end up burdening or harming people of color, but not all instances of white women crying where race is a cogent factor can be classified as such. Feels like telling men not to cry in front of women in a feminist context–this actually doesn't help men, or women, and emotional repression probably makes a lot of tangible problems like domestic abuse worse.
Otherwise, powerful book; I definitely recommend it.
“Twenty years was yesterday, and yesterday was just earlier this morning, and morning seemed light-years away.”
Oh, fine, Aciman. Just go ahead and murder me. I love being killed. Nevermind that I have to drive my mother to the airport in the morning.
Good book. Aciman packs some practically transgressive intimacy into the relationship. ‘B.' and all the details, and the plot are solid and don't feel like they're just props. Elio's experience, and what we see of Oliver's, is real and honest. When they're together everything is beautiful and nothing everything hurts. for me: 3 stars = good, tasty book. 4 stars = jesus, it was amazing. 5 stars = i don't deserve to have read it, my life has been altered, etc.
Came back to finish the last quarter of this after I'd read [b:If Beale Street Could Talk 38463 If Beale Street Could Talk James Baldwin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388182698s/38463.jpg 1413005], so I do think I've been afflicted with some same-author-fatigue. That being said, Another Country is packed with a lot and, I think, shows off some really good character development within the main group. Some of his preferred adjectives get exasperating after a while (“bewildered,” jesus), and even the behavior of the characters does: all the young men are bisexual artists, none of the women are anything but straight–and quite sexual, in a commodified way. They all drink and smoke and suffer from the urban ennui constantly.But it gets real in a lot of ways that too many works of art(and people...everyone) shy away from or are too intent on being ‘clean' to confront.
I might have Baldwin-fatigue, but I thought this was just ok. I have to say I don't think it's much compared to [b:Another Country 38474 Another Country James Baldwin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353255131s/38474.jpg 1427427], [b:Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348424233s/17143.jpg 1027995], or [b:Giovanni's Room 38462 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1501485157s/38462.jpg 814207] ... which is fine, because those are some damn hard-hitters. It's interesting because this almost feels like one of those novels some hugely successful author wrote before they found success with better, later works. This is the opposite, which makes sense somehow; Baldwin was nothing if not unconventional.
A book that “ought” to be read if interested in vegetarianism for any reason, because it's a bit of a landmark, no matter how one might feel about Singer. I'd say he develops his points pretty thoroughly, but there are some places where I think he takes his conclusion for granted (mainly w/r/t ‘hypocrisy' and species/sex/race-ism). I find the “interests” argument pretty compelling. However, I started reading this already mostly-convinced, so I can't really speak to the conversion power of this book.
Baldwin's honesty and smarts on full display here. Can be exhaustingly verbose at times, but everything I read in here was worth it. His analyses of America are absolutely cutting and struck a chord in me that I wasn't even really aware of.
I would like to make it known that the notes(they're not even footnotes, which I guess is a Library of America thing) for this edition are honestly not great, which is surprising, as it was edited by Toni Morrison. Not sure what happened there.
Doesn't seem like a rating would be appropriate for this piece. It's been meddled with, is unfinished, and is only one version of what Twain had been working on.I do wish he'd lived to finish this. The background story and setting do have some significance, but they don't offer much more value than their functioning as signals for the context of Satan's philosophy (Faust–not just Goethe's work, but the legend itself; Schiller's [b:Die Räuber 942336 Die Räuber Friedrich Schiller https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1179652399s/942336.jpg 6226708]; Hegel/Nietzsche).I also wish I had a more recent understanding of some of Twain's finished works so maybe I could imagine what The Mysterious Stranger could have been. Theodor and Satan are the two most prominent characters, but almost nothing(and yet everything) happens to/in Theodor. Everything about the plot is abrupt. The form and endless talk of “dreaming” (and Satan's alternate name: “Philip Traum” – shoutout to /lit/ for memeing [b:Zettels Traum 6761655 Zettels Traum Arno Schmidt https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1365691063s/6761655.jpg 6265305], which is the only reason I picked up on that) do make me think that Twain wanted to write The Mysterious Stranger as a dream, but I think dream-like works need to have intensely emotional content (e.g., David Lynch). The Mysterious Stranger feels much more like a sort of [b:Thus Spoke Zarathustra 51893 Thus Spoke Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480901846s/51893.jpg 196327]-type frame for a set of philosophical aphorisms. The weakness of the story/setting does work with the whole “[i]t is all a dream–a grotesque and foolish dream” idea, but that kind of feels like making excuses for ineffective/uninteresting writing. Would have been more interesting and cutting if written in the style of [b:La Chute 774027 La Chute Albert Camus https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356291219s/774027.jpg 3324245] ( which of course, wasn't written until half a century later) or something more forcefully absurd and personal like Kafka's [b:A Country Doctor 221524 A Country Doctor Franz Kafka https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1366803130s/221524.jpg 907551], [b:Description of a Struggle 1873712 Description of a Struggle Franz Kafka https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1341595345s/1873712.jpg 46240676], or [b:Before the Law 9682386 Before the Law (The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories) Franz Kafka https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1289573498s/9682386.jpg 19169658].Anyway, lines like “you are but a thought–a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!” – that's my jam (no, I do not know why). There's a lot of that here, so I liked it.
Mishima knits the complexities and tensions of the narrator together until, tying off knot after knot, you feel his prison yourself. From end to end the emotions he suffers are made beautifully clear.I do wonder if Mishima had read Dazai's [b:No Longer Human 194746 No Longer Human Osamu Dazai https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1422638843s/194746.jpg 188338], which came out the year before, as there are some strong similarities between the way each narrator describes his life.You know when you read or watch something that's so good you immediately throw yourself into the rest of what that creator has to offer? That's what I'm doing as soon as I hit “Save.”I have just one question...Why did i wait so long to read Mishima?
I almost feel like the 5+ years it would take to be able to read this book in Japanese would be worth it.
My favorite thing about this book is that it doesn't get better. Dazai relentlessly builds on the inborn suffering the narrator holds–the locus of which seems to be his existence itself. Of course, the irony of this man that builds a mask and rots away internally–until even his façade crumbles–is that his struggles are human through and through.
I'm not sure what to say. For a long time I've avoided works on war, especially World War II. As a student in middle school, I read [b:Number the Stars 47281 Number the Stars Lois Lowry https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1370917812s/47281.jpg 2677305], [b:A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier 43015 A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1436596718s/43015.jpg 825414], [b:The Hiding Place 561909 The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1320418824s/561909.jpg 878114], and a few other books of that ilk. They always got to me, especially A Long Way Gone, but then I just stopped reading them. So I haven't gotten to Night until now.That was a mistake. Wiesel's account of the nightmare he went through gripped me painfully. The whole thing was honest and raw. Certain sections evoked a darkness and weight that I truly can't imagine. Night was an unforgettable read.